1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to machinery, and more particularly, to improvement of a damping mechanism of the machinery.
2. Prior Art
Precision instruments such as coordinate measuring machine are provided with movable bodies. Although these types of precision instruments require high speed and high precision, vibrations more easily occur with increases in speed and precision. Precision instruments in particular require improvements in relation to performance irregularities. In the precision instruments, there are the performance irregularities arising from the vibrations occurred by the instruments. If these vibrations can be suppressed, the speed and precision of the precision instruments can be further increased.
In the prior art, in order to increase the speed and precision of precision instruments, damping vibrations by using elastic rubber or springs had been considered.
Also in the prior art, although there is technology that negates the reaction force during stage movement, using this to increase the speed and precision of precision instruments can also be considered (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2002-170765, 2002-175963, 2001-230178, 2001-118773, 2000-243811 and 2000-216082). This prior art technology, for example, provides a mass that is equivalent to that of the stage. This prior art technology, by linearly moving the mass in the direction opposite to the direction of movement of the stage using reactive force during movement of the stage, negates the reaction force during stage movement.
However, even if the elastic rubber, etc., or the prior art methods described in the aforementioned patent documents are used to increase the speed and precision of precision instruments, a satisfactory damping effect cannot be attained.
In seeking to further increase the speed and precision of precision instruments, there is a limit to the increase the speed and precision because more vibrations are occurred. In precision instruments, although there is still room for improvement in performance irregularities due to vibrations, there has been no suitable technology that can solve this problem in the prior art.